


exclusivity

by fated_addiction



Category: K-pop, Korean Actor RPF, Mamamoo, Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/F, Feelings and stuff, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7982755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>How it starts: Moonbyul is not in love with Wheein.</i> Moonbyul is the first to admit she's bad at this - you know, FEELINGS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	exclusivity

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this is for K.
> 
> Mostly because it just happened and she also let me bully her into watching a drama, so SURPRISE!

-

 

 

The first problem is this – they _rarely_ go outside the circle.

“Circle of _trust_ ,” Hyejin stage whispers to an amused Umji, jerking her hand off and around the stage at the rest of the members. “Eric-ssi doesn’t count,” she explains. She pats Umji’s head too. “And Umji-ssi either. I’ve adopted you.”

“Careful,” Moonbyul drawls. “She might kidnap you too.”

Hyejin glares. Behind them, Wheein breaks into peels of laughter. Moonbyul’s hearing perks; she bites back a frown in the inside of her mouth.

“And anyway,” Hyejin says, eyes glittering, “it’s up to Byulyi-eonni to keep it in the family.”

Umji looks puzzled. Moonbyul’s face isn’t on fire; her insides, however, knot together and start to squeeze their way into giving her a dry throat. Rude gestures aren’t her thing: she merely punches Hyejin in the arm, loud enough to make her squeak, earning the concern of Yongsun and Wheein, as she coolly walks away and back solo to their dressing room.

The only _real_ problem is Moonbyul doesn’t know how to look.

 

 

 

 

 

How it starts:

Moonbyul is not in love with Wheein. At least, this is what she tells herself the first two years of their debut together. She gets a lot of advice: “It’s only natural that you have feelings for someone when you’re basically on top of each other!” or, of course, her favorite – “Get worried if you let her have the remote!” (she does, mostly) because sharing the remote is like a universal code for _you’re screwed_. 

But it’s something unravels anyway, from stupid things like sitting in front of her in the van, reaching back and holding hands until one of them falls asleep to sharing the same love of the _bloodiest_ action movies ever since neither of them can really watch anything scary. There are other things, of course, small, subtle things that she could go over in her head, pick out and then return to catch another detail, only to find one more new thing to add to the list.

“Yongsun-ah,” she groans finally, head dropped into her arms. It’s a bright day. Solar leaves for shooting We Got Married or that show that lets celebrities secretly date in sight or whatever. It’s the first morning and Solar’s already accidentally thrown out her favorite dress. “ _Yongsun_ ,” she tries again, sighing.

Solar stops. Throws a pair of heels against the wall. She mutters something about _white_ but whatever, Moonbyul thinks. She’ll figure out.

“I’m nervous!” Solar says.

Moonbyul rolls her eyes. “You’ll be fine. Just plan a place to eat.”

“It’s not that simple,” her eonni shoots back. She glares too. “Food is serious business. What if he wants to, like, go bungee jumping or something ridiculous.”

“Did you have to sign a waiver?” Moonbyul is dry. “Because if you did –”

“I would have volunteered you or Wheein in a heartbeat instead.” Solar smirks. Moonbyul’s caught and knows she’s caught; the angry flush just sort of happens, unavoidable in the end. “And we both know how thrilled you’d be at that.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Moonbyul mutters, drops her head in her arms and hates everything about this conversation because she’s exposed and she doesn’t know how to be unexposed and of course, it’s Solar right in front of her who is bound to lord it over her head. 

But instead of teasing her, Solar stops packing, walking to where she sits at the table, grabbing the stool across from her. She leans in, brushing her bangs away from her face. She reaches for the lone curler, gently rolling the stray hairs away from her eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” her leader says kindly. Her smile is bright. “And you should probably do something about it soon,” she adds, “because you know how impatient Wheein-ie gets.”

Green lights are even weirder when you’re not ready to hear them. Moonbyul looks away, face hot.

“Whatever,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

Wheein buys her a cactus. This is two years ago, three months in, and the thing is long since dead, not surprisingly, since the only flowers that Moonbyul can keep alive are cut flowers and really, that’s mostly based on luck. And the other members, of course.

“It’s prickly,” she says, shoving it into her hands. “Just like you!” she beams and Moonbyul unknowingly takes that on as a compliment, seeing as the girls have unofficially elected her as the cool girl. Whatever that means. But Wheein reaches forward, tugging at her braid. “Do you like it?”

“Sure,” Moonbyul tries to coolly shrug, “I guess so.” She tries to poke the cactus, her finger jerking back quickly when the needle presses into her skin. “That –”

Wheein laughs, patting her head. “It’s a cactus, dummy.”

It’s not the moment – you know, the moment, the one that uncurls in the pit of your stomach, that makes your throat dry, that drowns knots in your belly and your toes curls because oh god, you so can’t handle this right now because she is touching you _that_ way and you can’t really understand why you see how small the distance between the two of you really is and how easy it might be to just go and steal some kind of kiss.

But the moment is close enough, hard enough for the knots in Moonbyul’s stomach to twist and pull and walk all the way up into the back of her throat.

“Thanks,” she mumbles finally, biting her finger. Wheein’s eyes grow large and bright. “Hopefully I keep it alive or whatever,” she adds.

It’s like the universe decided anyway.

 

 

 

(When the cactus dies, it’s like a murder scene in her bedroom, complete with dried up, rosy petals from the flowers that curled up on her windowsill. She feels guilty enough to make herself panic, then bully Hyejin into hiding the evidence because she could lie and say _hey who left the window open_ which would be a stupid thing to do because she gets cold easily and she may be the worst liar known to man.)

(“You should have just told me,” Wheein says, gently even, curled in bed with her because of course Moonbyul is all talk as it is. “We can have a funeral for the cactus,” she says too and Moonbyul’s face crumples, half-watery, half-weirded out because whatever, by now, they’ve always been like this.)

(Maybe then, it was a little like love.)

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re always so serious, eonni.”

They’re making t-shirts for Solar and Eric, mostly because Yongsun orders them to be better in-laws and amusingly tells them that Eric is, well, actually terrified of them – which, good, he should be. Moonbyul thinks she’d be terrified of them too, looking in from the outside.

But it’s just the two of them since Hyejin has abandoned them in the practice room from a skype call with Umji because she’s obsessed and when Hyejin is obsessed, everything else like, uh, _life_ takes a back seat. Which, whatever. She likes Umji too.

“I’m not that serious,” she argues lazily. She looks up from fringing Wheein’s t-shirt. “I’m just trying not to cut myself. Or ruin Yongsunie’s face.”

Wheein laughs delightedly. “We should draw on them!”

“We should be practicing,” Moonbyul mutters, shaking her head. Her mouth twists into a light smile. She finishes the shirt though, flaps it into the air and then throws it at Wheein’s head. “But –” she holds up a hand just as Wheein’s mouth opens, “we can take an Instagram photo first.”

“You’re the best!”

The truth is that they kind of have an hour to kill, or so – it depends when Yongsun finishes shooting and when their choreographer gets here on time. There’s a lot of work to get done, that’s nothing new, but it creates a lot of anxiety for Moonbyul. She likes a lot of order, more structure than none, and while certain things are forever unpredictable, she’s dependent on her job to have some kind of rhythm. 

“I’m not that serious,” she says, out loud, and before she’s caught herself, Wheein laughs, moving to stand next to her in the mirror. Moonbyul wears an embarrassed smile. “I’m _not_ ,” she insists.

“You are. That’s okay though – it’s part of your charm.”

“You’re not that scary, Byulyi-ah.” Wheein steps in front of her, then in front of the mirror, closing the bare gap of space that sometimes, most times, Moonbyul swears that it pretends to exist. There’s a look that Wheein gives her. It’s nothing new; it just unnerves Moonbyul in a way that she doesn’t really know how to deal with it. “You may think you are,” she says too. “And, okay, maybe some of the kids might think you’re scary too – but it’s a cool scary.”

Moonbyul snorts. “You’re not helping.”

“Whatever,” Wheein shrugs. “You’re not scary to me – and I’m the only one that matters.”

It sort of happens then, that strange bout of courage that comes out of nowhere – _literally_ nowhere – where Moonbyul opens her mouth and sounds sort of happen on its own. She’s aware: she breathes first, stands straighter next, squaring her shoulders so that she sort of towers over Wheein on her own right. Maybe she’s closer. Maybe she was closer to begin with. 

“You are,” she manages softly, her voice cracks, just slightly, into something lower, as she reaches forward and twists a lock of hair around her finger. Wheein’s eyes are wide, suddenly, and someone’s breathing loudly. “Weird, huh?” she murmurs. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud either.”

Wheein’s voice is sort of distant. “You haven’t?”

“No,” she murmurs. “I don’t think so.” Her mouth kind of curls and she licks her lips, swallowing because she’s _thinking_ about it, things like taste and sighs and what kind of noise would Wheein make if she just went over her mouth with – “Sorry about that,” she manages, drawing back reluctantly. 

Wheein frowns, prettily of course, but frowns nonetheless. Moonbyul is saved by the door, by Hyejin stumbling in with Yongsun, mid-argument and completely unaware that they might have just walked into something. But Wheein’s eyes are bright and her expression unreadable as her mouth folds into some kind of weird frown, weird smirk that Moonbyul has no idea where to place.

“You should tell me more often then,” she calls, loud enough for Moonbyul to hear, but quiet enough for it to be swallowed whole by the music starting in the corner. Wheein switches back into a cheerful laugh when Yongsun grabs her, pulling at the t-shirts that they’ve made.

For the rest of the night, Moonbyul feels her heart remain in her throat.

This is another problem, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

There is no real way to put it. Moonbyul knows without saying the words – you know, _the words_ , the one that makes everything spin while you feel like the biggest, exposed idiot in the world. 

Usually, she’s fine with shoving her feelings elsewhere. Their schedules are busy. She’s got a couple of solo projects in the studio to take care of; verses are easy, but production is something that she’s interested in and her company, thankfully, is even more interested in guiding her properly because of the weight of their success, both as a group and with solo activities. 

But her feelings just don’t go away: they live in the back of her head, through every meeting, every schedule, every time she’s in the studio and there’s a piece of paper in front of her that says _damn it, just write a love song_ because that seems like the most logical way to process this. She waits awhile though; sort of decides that since everyone is asleep, she can get up and make a home in the kitchen, complete with snacks, tea, and notebook Wheein gave her one holiday where she was like, “I didn’t know what to get you?” and then inside, there were tickets to the f(x) concert because Wheein is frighteningly perceptive enough to use her powers for good.

She writes for awhile this way. Blows up an idea chart. Hates it – like really hates it. Wonders if this is what Zico does in the middle of the night, but with a notebook and alcohol because that seems like a logical piece to his puzzle or whatever. She writes things like _love is_ and _i don’t know me without you_ because that’s really what is at the heart of it, she guess. And kind of hates herself for it.

A door shuts. She’s almost startled. She listens to the shuffling of feet; her mouth shifts and smiles.

“Go back to bed,” she says, after awhile. A glass mug is pushed in front of her. Moonbyul doesn’t react though. “It’s late,” she says.

Wheein scoffs. “I can hear you brood from my bedroom.”

“I’m not _brooding_.”

“Whatever, _writing_ ,” Wheein dismisses, leaning over the table. She looks down at the notebook when Moonbyul looks up, a few strands of hair covering her face as she starts humming herself. Whatever melody that was playing in Moonbyul’s head is long gone, heavy with a haze that sort of hits, wrapping around her when Wheein says something, pushing her finger into the middle of the notebook.

“It’s about _you_ ,” she blurts, then tries to retract, but ends up frozen, wide-eyed when Wheein just stops humming and stares right at her. This feels too much like a confession. “It just sort of happened,” Moonbyul mutters, swallowing. “I was thinking about you, then about me and you, and then, you know, there were words and I had a pen and –”

Wheein covers her mouth with her own.

It doesn’t hit her for a while, but when it does, it feels a little like breathing, the heat from her embarrassment and frustrating climbing up her throat and into her face as Wheein wraps a fist in her hair. Someone sighs and Moonbyul opens her mouth, swallowing, then moaning as Wheein’s tongue jerks forward, into her own, lapping away at the inside of her mouth too. Her head is swimming, caught somewhere between her rationality and everything else, clinging desperately to finding some kind of control. But all Moonbyul does is manage to reach forward, curling her fingers into fistfuls of Wheein’s hair, dragging closer and over the table.

She doesn’t care if Wheein kissed her first. Then sort of laughs at herself, at that thought, into Wheein’s mouth because all of this is crazy. It takes awhile for them to break apart and Moonbyul dips back, dragging her fingers into Wheein’s hand, settling on her stool.

“Let me say it first,” she says, and underneath their hands, still tangled, is the notebook, full of wrinkled paper and a lot of words that seem to make sense for a split second. “It’s going to take me a minute to catch up, you know.”

Wheein laughs. It’s a husky sound. “I’ve gotten better at waiting,” is what she says, and it makes Moonbyul blush, deeply even, because if that’s not a confession, she doesn’t know what else to do. “So don’t worry,” she adds. “I’ll be right here.”

Moonbyul can only smile, the corners of her mouth etched too deeply into her skin, wrinkled even as she returns to her notebook, unfolding some of the pages.

It makes sense, she thinks.

 

 

 

 

 

Wheein buys her another cactus.

It doesn’t surprise her either – she loses the card not because it says something like “Happy anniversary!” with another giant, ridiculous smiley face. The cactus is greener than she understands. It’s a little small, at least smaller than the first one. There’s a giant flower at the head, a bright red. It’s surrounded by stones in its pot, settling against the ledge of her window as Wheein fusses over it. “Right in front – for maximum light,” she even says, a bold smile written into her mouth.

This isn’t about change.


End file.
